Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/379

Rh took possession of Servia. This advance of Turkey westward was one of the dangers attending those wars that has not been sufficiently appreciated. In Servia the work of liberation had to be done over again. On Palm Sunday iu the year 1815 the Serbs rose and struck for liberty a second time, their leader being Milosh Obrenovich, After a contest of five years the sultan was compelled to grant autonomy. Servia is now an independent kingdom. It will be well understood that under these circumstances she does not own any allegiance to the patriarch of Constantinople. In point of fact, the Greek Church in Servia is entirely self-governing. It is organised under a synod of bishops presided over by the archbishop of Belgrade, who is the metropolitan of Servia; and it is divided into five dioceses. There are forty-eight monasteries of the Oriental Church in the country.

The Greek Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina is still further removed from the interference of Turkey or the Constantinople authorities, since these provinces are now under Austrian rule. About one-half of the population is of the orthodox Church, the other half being equally divided between Roman Catholics and Mohammedans, except that there are some Jews. The orthodox Church—while at one with the Greeks in doctrine—is entirely self-governing, under four metropolitans.

A survey of the situation thus produced affords a striking illustration of the essential difference between the Eastern and the Western Churches. No such detached, independent churches as we see here belonging to the orthodox communion would be possible under the papacy. Rome is most fearful of schism, Constantinople of heresy. Rome will nave no dealings with a church that is not obedient to the pope; Constantinople will send its chrism to a church that does not own allegiance to its patriarch, so long as that church is strictly orthodox. Individual